Loyal Dissent: Memoir of a Catholic Theologian

6. More Trials

A formal portrait with older brother and sister, John (Jack) and Kathryn (Kay). With younger brother Ernest, left. I was ordained a priest in Rome on July 13, 1958. The retirement luncheon for my father in July 1965. (Front, left to right) my father, John, and mother, Gertrude, and (back, left to right) me, my sister, Kay, and brother, Ernest. As president of the Catholic Theology Society of America (center) with Cardinal Terence Cooke (left) giving Fr. Richard McCormick (right) the John Courtney Murray Award in 1969. With Father Walter J. Schmitz, Dean of the School of Theology at Catholic University, without whose support the 1967 strike would not have happened. After the Eucharistic liturgy presided over by Fr. Bernard Häring at the Church of St. Alphonsus in Rome the day after my meeting with Cardinal Ratzinger in March of 1986. (Left to right) Msgr. George Higgins, Fr. William Cenkner, Fr. Angelo Caliguri, Fr. Bernard Häring, Fr. Charles Curran, Sr. Muriel Curran, and Msgr. Gerard Krieg. Walking up to the Superior Court of the District of Columbia with my lawyers, John Hunt (back), Juanita Crowley (left), and Paul Saunders (right) for my lawsuit against Catholic University in December 1988. At a press conference at Catholic University after the Vatican condemnation in 1986. With friend Sr. Theresa Kane, who had confronted Pope John Paul II about the ordination of women. I have been the Elizabeth Scurlock University Professor of Human Values at Southern Methodist University since 1991. This page intentionally left blank 6 C H A P T E R More Trials I have had no communication from the Vatican since Ratzinger’s letter of July 25, 1986, informing me that I was neither suitable nor eligible to teach Catholic theology. What effect would this declaration have on me? That question would be answered by CUA and, ultimately, by the courts.1 CUA’s Response In his letter to me of August 18, 1986, and in the conversation that followed , Hickey told me that on the basis of the Vatican decision, approved by the pope, he, as chancellor of CUA, was initiating the withdrawal of the canonical mission that allowed me to teach theology there. According to the statutes, I had a right to request due process proceedings, but Hickey unilaterally imposed a September 1 deadline for me to accept those procedures. If I did not, then he would withdraw the canonical mission. I responded that I had never received a canonical mission and that he had no right unilaterally to give me a deadline of two weeks. I was on sabbatical leave for the calendar year 1986 and under no obligation to participate in university business. Also, after the new statutes were adopted, I had written an official letter to the university dated August 12, 1982, 137 138 兩 L O YA L D I S S E N T saying that I was not obliged by the new statutes or the canonical mission since the university could not unilaterally add something to my contract as a tenured ordinary professor. I asked Hickey what effect the removal of the canonical mission would have on my tenure, but Hickey could not answer that question. Immediately, Bill Cenkner, as dean, and the committee on academic freedom and procedures of the school encouraged me to ask for the due process hearing as allowed by the statutes, provided this would not interfere with my physical or mental health. In Cenkner’s view the process was an important opportunity to emphasize again the role of the theologian/ scholar in the church. I also saw it as a chance to continue my long-standing struggle for academic freedom at CUA. It is important to grasp the complex nature of CUA. In nonlegal language , before 1970 CUA was both a pontifical (or ecclesiastical) university chartered by the Vatican and able to give certain Vatican degrees, and a civil university chartered in the District of Columbia with U.S.-accredited degrees. In 1970 CUA, like most other Catholic institutions, cut its institutional ties to the church and control passed entirely to its independent board of trustees. At CUA, however, the forty-person board was made up of equal numbers of laypeople and clerics, and of the twenty clerics at least sixteen were bishops. Thus the bishops, for all practical purposes, still...